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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30144324">Choices</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Timelines, Canon typical distortion fuckery, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:21:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,699</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30144324</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen decides to do Jon a little favor post-apocalypse: let him see the ways his life would have changed if his choices had been different, and decide whether or not to stay on the path Jonah Magnus put him on.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Choices</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Outside the boarded up window of a tiny house in the Scottish countryside, an Eye looked down from the sky with complete and utter fascination. Below, in a village a few miles away and in cities and towns all over the world, people screamed and prayed to whatever gods they had for escape, and it felt no pity, just mild interest. Curiosity.</p><p>Inside that house, Jonathan Sims was curled on the bed, watching the man he loved sleeping fitfully, and trying very hard not to think about anything at all. </p><p>A familiar, heavy creak split the air, and Jon gritted his teeth. He didn’t have to turn over to know he’d see a freestanding yellow door where there should have been nothing but empty space and a bureau shoved against the bedroom door, like that would provide any protection when the monster was already <em> inside. </em></p><p>“Archivist.” Helen’s voice was singsongy but soft, gentle, curling. “Something on your mind?”</p><p>He didn’t answer. The less he spoke, the less damage he could do, and besides—that hopeless, hysterical laughter was still just a breath away, and it had frightened Martin. He would <em> not </em>frighten Martin again. He had lost control over everything in his life, but not that. Never that.</p><p>“A cold shoulder for your oldest, dearest friend?” She asked innocently. “I just popped by to thank you for creating this <em> marvelous </em>new world. A veritable wonderland for monsters like us! And to show you, if you wanted to see, that there was no better outcome. If you’re not interested, though…”</p><p>Jon could see her even with his back turned. He saw everything, now. Her too-long, too-sharp fingers curled around the doorframe and her wide, secretive smile spilled over the sides of her face.</p><p>“What better outcome?” His voice was rough from disuse.</p><p>“Come see, Archivist. I want to show you.” The smile dropped slightly, and if he didn’t know better, he’d call her expression earnest. “You really ought not to feel guilty.” She held out a beckoning hand. “At what point, exactly, would you change things if you could? I can show you, you know—what would have happened. And you won’t like it any better than you like the state of things now. Maybe even less.”</p><p>He knew better. He couldn’t trust her. “The throat of delusion incarnate, yes, I’m sure <em> that </em>will show me the truth.”</p><p>Her expression was almost…disappointed. “Archivist.”</p><p>He wanted to correct her, but he felt he’d lost the right to a human name. So he didn’t. He wasn’t Jon anymore. Maybe he hadn’t been in a long time.</p><p>“This was inevitable.”</p><p>“I don’t believe you,” he bit out. </p><p>“Seeing is believing,” she crooned. “Let me show you, Archivist. It will make you feel better, knowing this is the...least objectionable outcome.” She held out a hand, and with some effort, it faded into something less knife-like and more human. “And I will return you, safe and sound, before he even knows you’re gone. You can even compel me, if you like.”</p><p>He swung his legs off the side of the bed, and it felt—good. Better than he’d felt in a long time. His leg didn’t hurt where Prentiss’s worms had burrowed in and destroyed cartilage and bone. He no longer felt the wrongness of his two missing ribs. The goddamn apocalypse was clearly nourishing him in some way. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t been exhausted, and now—</p><p>“If I see a better...alternative. Can you make it real?”</p><p>Peals of multilayered laughter bounced off the walls. “Oh, they <em> are </em> real, Archivist. All you have to do is walk through a door and close it, and that will be your world. This one will fade away, and become nothing but a possibility. The choices are <em> infinite.” </em></p><p>“If this reality...fades. What happens to Martin?”</p><p>“Oh, he’s in most of the others anyway.”</p><p>“Yes, but <em> my </em>Martin.”</p><p>“Possessive, now, aren’t we?” Her grin ran off her face again. “You can return here, to hell you’ve made for yourself. If you want to.”</p><p>“You will allow me to return here safely. Nothing is allowed to harm Martin while I’m gone.” His voice was thick and heavy with power, the acrid stench of compulsion and fear rolling away from him.</p><p>“Fine, yes, come on.” She flapped her hand and gestured for him to follow her.</p><p>Her hallways looked suspiciously like the tunnels under the institute, a subdued, ancient grey stone instead of her signature shifting, maddening wallpaper with patterns you could never pin down.</p><p>“Is this—the Archives?”</p><p>“This is <em> you</em>,” Helen said delightedly. “The branching paths of your decisions. Come now, tell me. Where do you think you could have made a better choice?”</p><p>Every moment in his <em> life</em>, he didn’t say, but felt it down to his marrow. </p><p>He didn’t even have to say it out loud. She made a gentle, chiding <em> tsk </em>at him, wagging a finger. “Now, this is no time for self-loathing. I’m offering you an opportunity to fix things.”</p><p>The earliest moment, in a string of moments that led him here, thirty one years old in the middle of an apocalypse of his own creation. </p><p>“The Leitner.” His voice was hoarse, probably still from Jonah’s incantation, still raw and echoing in his bones. “<em> A Guest for Mr. Spider.</em>”</p><p>“Ah, excellent choice.” She took off at a brisk clip. “Do keep up,” she called over her shoulder cheerfully. The swirls of color on her suit jacket undulated and warped, melting off only to be replaced by new ones. “This is an awfully long way into your past.”</p><p>They took a sharp left and the corridor was no longer the Institute, but a colorless, dusty hallway with cheap plastic flowers in vases atop dull and yellowing doilies. His grandmother’s home. He stopped long enough to look at the portrait on the wall, his chest tightening. He didn’t even remember what his parents looked like, and here was a picture of them. He didn’t really understand the tightness in his chest when he looked and saw them, but also himself—glasses and sharp, angular face  like his father, dark eyes like his mother. Neither of them were grey yet, though, and it hurt to think that he was older now than they had been when they died. </p><p>He very, very carefully let the door at the end of the hall fall open, knowing what he would find. </p><p>A listless, lonely boy was sprawled on a bed. Nothing in the room betrayed the fact that a child lived there. It was perfectly bland and inoffensive, and Jon<em> remembered, </em>remembered feeling like time never ended there, that there was nothing but an eternity of boredom. A child safety lock was on the window because his grandmother knew she couldn’t trust him not to climb out and wander off to sate his constant curiosity. </p><p>It wasn’t his gran’s fault. She had raised her own child and was now burdened with another despite being bent-backed with grief for her son. Instead of seeing Jon as a part of what she had lost, she simply saw a mouth to feed, a body to clothe, a troublemaker to keep contained and quiet and minding his own business so she could find peace again.</p><p>The child Jon discarded the book he was reading, walked over to the window, and—with a glance over his shoulder to make sure his gran hadn’t materialized in the doorway—deftly took a straightened-out safety pin and popped the window lock open, expertly, as if he had done it a dozen times before. He carefully packed his backpack full of books and Jon’s pulse raced when he saw the black, white, and red cover among them. </p><p>Jon wanted to snatch it out of his hands, to burn it. </p><p>As child Jon climbed out the window, a handful of books slid out, clattering to the floor. Jon watched his retreating back, his bag bouncing against his shoulders as he made a break for the park.</p><p>His shaking fingers reached for the book, his other hand clutching the lighter in the pocket of his jacket.</p><p>His fingers went straight through it.</p><p>“Tcht.” Helen wagged a finger at him like a naughty child. “You’re not here to <em> change </em>things, Archivist. Just to see how things would have gone if they had been just slightly different.”</p><p>“If I can’t change anything, what’s the point?” His temper flared.</p><p>“Jonathan!” His gran’s stern voice made him jump, and she shuffled into the room, her eyes narrowing with anger when she saw the open window.</p><p>It was clear the moment she decided it wasn’t worth it. She heaved a sigh and started to gather the discarded books. Maybe if she got him some new ones, he’d stay put. She absently flipped one open, then tucked it under her arm, and reached for another.</p><p>“No,” Jon whispered.</p><p>“She can’t hear you.” Helen didn’t sound even a little bit sorry.</p><p>“Don’t!” he bellowed, throwing every ounce of compulsion he could into it, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t <em> really </em>there. </p><p>Jon’s grandmother didn’t read him stories out loud, even when he was too young to really read much himself. Said she didn’t have the voice for it. But her brows furrowed and she seemed unable to stop herself.</p><p>“Knock knock,” she said, her voice trembling. She turned the page with shaking fingers. “Who is it, Mr. Spider?”</p><p>Jon tried desperately to claw the book out of her hands. </p><p>“It’s Mr. Bluebottle, and he’s brought you a cake.”</p><p>Jon hurled himself through the door, he needed it to <em> stop. </em>He slammed it behind him, his breath heaving, and he was back in the Institute tunnels again.</p><p>He turned to Helen and felt the power surge through him. The hallway constricted around him.</p><p>“It’s hardly <em> my </em> fault you didn’t like what you saw,” she said petulantly. “If you hadn’t read the book, it would have been her. And then she would be gone, and poor little Jon would have been all alone. You never would have stopped looking for answers, though, and you <em> still </em>would have ended up at the Magnus Institute. It’s the only place answers could be found, after all! So really, nothing would have changed, and you’d have been marked all the same.”</p><p>He let out a frustrated hiss, and she steepled her over sharp fingers beneath her chin thoughtfully, almost indulgently. “Where now, Archivist? What would you have changed next?”</p><p>He stalked ahead down the hallway, knowing which door would be next, because he had walked through it every day for years, had practically <em> lived </em>in the office beyond.</p><p>He wasn’t sitting behind the desk, though, as he gently pushed the head archivist’s door open. </p><p>“Who’s that?” He squinted at her. </p><p>A mustard yellow cardigan hung off her shoulders. Her face looked tired behind large, round glasses, and her wild curls had been clipped back away from her face.</p><p>If he had quit before Elias—Jonah—had offered him the position in Archives, this woman would have taken his place. All the horrible things that had happened to him would simply have happened to her instead.</p><p>Jon is beginning to understand, a little, what Helen meant.</p><p>Ultimately, maybe nothing could <em> really </em>be changed.</p><p>He drifted over to her desk, and she looked right through him. He ghosted his fingers over the etched nameplate that should have said <em> Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist</em>, the letters forming words that shouldn’t have shocked him but did. He bit back a cry when he finally understood that the unfamiliar woman at the desk—</p><p>“Sasha.” It was a broken, wounded sound, but she couldn’t hear him. </p><p>It was the <em> real </em>Sasha. The one he couldn’t remember. The one the NotThem had stolen away from them.</p><p>“Morning, boss!” chirped a voice that made Jon flinch. But this wasn’t post-Prentiss Tim, ready to burn down the Archives and the Stranger and take as many evils down with him as he could—Jon very much included.</p><p>She looked up, startled, and <em> how could he have forgotten? </em>That bright spark of determined curiosity, the mischievous smile?</p><p>“At least she’d still be alive,” he choked. “Tim, too.”</p><p>“For how long, though?” Helen folded her hands under her chin, batting her eyes innocently. “How long until Jonah begins turning <em> her </em>into the Archive you became? Until he feeds your friends to the powers to speed along her Becoming?”</p><p>“And Martin. Would Martin be safe?”</p><p>She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t we see for ourselves, Archivist?” </p><p>He turned to see another corridor, not the archives or anywhere he recognized. The only illumination came from emergency lighting every ten feet down the hall. <em> The power is out, </em> the Beholding supplied helpfully. On the worn carpet, Jon caught sight of flashes of silver. He recoiled with a shout, unconsciously scrabbling at his arms, at old scars long closed, remembering with excruciating clarity the feel of Prentiss’s worms crawling into him, <em> through him</em>—</p><p>“They can’t touch you, Archivist. Unless you close the door behind you, of course, though I hardly think you’ll want to stay in<em> this </em>world.”</p><p>His blood ran cold when he saw the writhing mass of worms that had rotted through the door. </p><p>“Martin.” It came out a strangled whisper.</p><p>If Prentiss wasn’t out in the hall, that meant—</p><p>“He can’t hear you, we’ve been over this,” Helen tutted behind him, but he ignored her, charging straight through the sea of crawling rot, barreling into the apartment. His eyes only caught briefly on the now-abandoned host, just a small pile of red fabric and splinters of bone.</p><p>They’d found a <em> new </em>home.</p><p>Martin stood in his kitchen, his skin writhing.</p><p>“He can’t <em> hear </em> you,” Helen trilled gleefully as Jon screamed his name. “He doesn’t even <em> know </em> you, you never worked in the Archives. You can’t save him, just like you couldn’t save your <em> Sasha</em>, or your <em> Tim—“ </em></p><p>“Shut up.” He tried very hard for compulsion, but it came out a broken, wounded noise. </p><p>He hurled himself back into the hallway and slammed the door behind him, and it was just him and Helen again. His chest heaved as he leaned against the wallpaper, which was inexplicably <em> sharp. </em>The opposing wall was a mirror and it didn’t show Jon as he was—or, Jon has he had been. It was a monster. It might have been wearing Jon’s face, but.</p><p>Jess Terrell’s words played in his head, trembling. <em> He was ALL EYES. </em></p><p>He kicked, trying to shatter the mirror, and his monstrous reflection simply tilted its head back and laughed, the high, desperate sound he’d made when he was so sure the apocalypse was just a nightmare. </p><p>“Let me out.” He fisted his hands in his hair, closing his eyes, praying for the terrible, disorienting laughter to stop. “I don’t want to see any more. <em> Let me out</em>.”</p><p>Helen’s face grew stormy, her hand closing around his shoulder, puncturing his skin with her knife fingers. “You want to think <em> very hard </em>before you try compelling me again, Archivist, or I shall simply eat you and be done with it, and you will never return to your Martin.”</p><p>“You promised I could go back.” His voice sounded wretched even to his own ears.</p><p>“What am I, if not a lie? You knew that coming in. Now. Get up. We have one more stop.” She withdrew her hand, and he felt the flesh warp back into shape, healing instantly.</p><p>Her heels clicked as she took off down the hallway. Jon staggered to his feet and followed, because what choice did he have, really?</p><p>“If you had made a different choice after the Unknowing,” Helen supplied helpfully, “That’s the other moment you wish to change the most, isn’t it?”</p><p>“Yes,” Jon said softly. “I—I didn’t understand what I was agreeing to. What I would become.”</p><p>“Would it have made a difference? Really?” Her grin spilled off the sides of her face and it hurt his head to look at her.</p><p>“No,” he muttered. “I-I suppose not.”</p><p>The hallway ended in two opposing doors. Through one of them, watery, weak sunlight spilled in. No poked his head through it and felt the cool mist of rain on his face.</p><p>Or maybe it was droplets of fog, curling around a familiar figure arranging things at a grave like a shrine. </p><p>He recognized his own mug from the Archives, the one he drank from the night before leaving for Great Yarmouth, sitting shyly in the break room with Martin, back when he thought there would be time to explore whatever strange warmth was unfurling in his chest later. </p><p>The mist cleared enough that he could read his own name on the headstone. There was nothing underneath save dates. Because what had he been, really? He hadn’t exactly been a <em> loving friend </em> to anyone. He still hadn’t put his feelings for Martin to words at the time. Jonathan Sims: he was nearly eaten by a book as a child, he grew up cold and bitter and pushed everyone away, he worked in a temple to fear god, and then he died. It wasn’t exactly a life worth celebrating. But here was Martin, mourning him, and Jon made a small, wounded sound when he saw the tear tracks on his face.</p><p>He didn’t think he was such a great loss, but Martin—</p><p>Martin was here, propping up things that had mattered to him. Surely Martin <em> missing </em>him wasn’t a good enough reason to stay. At least the world would still be in one piece. Martin could learn to be happy elsewhere, learn to love someone who wasn’t a monster.</p><p>But this wasn’t everything. There was one more door. </p><p>“You really think Jonah would give up just because he lost an Archivist? Really,” Helen chided. “He has contingency plans in spades. You’re hardly the first Archivist he lost. He would just have to find a suitable replacement. Someone else who had been marked by the fears. Perhaps someone trapped in their flat by the corruption.” She tapped her overlong finger against her chin thoughtfully. “Someone predisposed to Loneliness. Who had been lost in the tunnels and thoroughly marked by the Spiral. <em> Who </em> could Jonah <em> possibly </em>pass the mantle of Archivist to next?”</p><p>He felt cold all over. “No.”</p><p>“This is your last chance to change things, though! The last possible moment where a different choice was possible. At least <em> look </em>through the final door.”</p><p>He didn’t want to. He also knew Helen wouldn’t let him go until he did. With a heavy dread, he leaned into the last door, finding it was a prison visiting room. </p><p>Elias was behind a plexiglass barrier, smiling blandly, his pale eyes flicking in Jon’s direction, and he froze. </p><p>Nobody was supposed to be able to see him.</p><p>“Yes, Peter, I believe you will find Mr. Blackwood a perfectly capable Archivist. He has all the...experience he needs, despite his lack of credentials.” His smile crept wider, and Jon would have given anything to kill him on the spot.</p><p>“No,” Jon snarled, whirling and slamming the door. “I will <em> never </em>let them have Martin.”</p><p>He intimately knew the weight of ending the world. He imagined the sheer magnitude of his own guilt, but borne instead by Martin, whose heart was so much softer, who was so much kinder than Jon had ever been, even on his best days.</p><p>He would never put him through that.</p><p>“Take me back, Helen.”</p><p>“See? I was just trying to show you—you made choices you didn’t like, but really, this was the best possible outcome. You’ll learn to be happy with them, eventually.” Her smile broadened. “Or you won’t. My door is always open if you change your mind and decide to try a different path.”</p><p>And then she was gone, and Jon was alone.</p><p>“Helen.”</p><p>He waited a moment, his heart rate spiking.</p><p>“Helen!”</p><p>The hallway warped around him, and her laugh echoed, scraping against his nerves. </p><p>He closed his eyes, wondering if he could still feel the pull of the rib in his office desk, and if so, if he emerged from a yellow door in his old office, how he could get back to Martin. </p><p>Or if he would simply wander Helen’s corridors forever. If so, Martin would never know what happened to him. He would simply wake up in an apocalypse of Jon’s making alone. </p><p>He wouldn’t have it.</p><p>He would never let Martin be lonely again, wouldn’t leave him in that hellscape without whatever protection Jon’s position with the Eye offered him.</p><p>He started walking, keeping his eyes closed. He didn’t try to Know, simply let the thought of Martin, still asleep in their bed, pull him along. </p><p>The rib had never been a suitable anchor, he realized numbly. And while the tape recorders had helped, it was the motivation, the action of <em> placing </em>them that had allowed him to escape the Buried. It was never about a physical object tying him to the world. It was about love. It always had been. </p><p><em> Martin </em>was his anchor.  He could feel it, a gentle tug behind his ribs.</p><p>“Now you’ve got it,” Helen said warmly, from a long way off.</p><p>Jon did not open his eyes, just kept walking.</p><p>And walking.</p><p>And walking.</p><p>If he looked, if he followed his eyes instead of his anchor, he would be lost.</p><p>(But he was so much a part of Beholding now. Not looking <em> hurt.</em>)</p><p>“Jon!”</p><p>“Martin!” He called back, desperately.</p><p>“Jon, can you hear me?”</p><p>He broke into a run, staggering and falling, getting back up and following the sound of Martin’s voice. <em> don’t come in don’t come in don’t come in </em></p><p>If Martin was in Helen’s corridors too, they were both done for. </p><p>He needn’t have worried. Martin was bracing himself against the doorframe, steady and reliable, arms outstretched, when Jon barreled into him. They landed in a heap on the floor, and when Jon looked over his shoulder, the yellow door was gone. They held each other for a long time, shaking. In the end, all Jon could do was live with the choices he’d made.</p>
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